


dude pass the (ear)bud

by krotenkonig



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krotenkonig/pseuds/krotenkonig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re sitting on the sofa in the common room with Karkat, nudged up comfortably together so his shoulder’s resting on yours. You’re working your way through an album by an underground rap artist you had downloaded on your phone prior to sburb and are sharing earbuds with Karkat after he insisted he listen to “whatever brainless hoofbeast shit you normally pound into your cranum.”</p><p>just shitting around with some typical davekat interaction, whats new. might add more chapters as inspo strikes but idk. no beta so sorry for the inevitable errors</p>
            </blockquote>





	dude pass the (ear)bud

You’re sitting on the sofa in the common room with Karkat, nudged up comfortably together so his shoulder’s resting on yours. You’re working your way through an album by an underground rap artist you had downloaded on your phone prior to sburb and are sharing earbuds with Karkat after he insisted he listen to “whatever brainless hoofbeast shit you normally pound into your cranum.”

It’s good stuff, poignant social commentary n shit, but you keep zoning out and devoting your focus to your etch-a-sketch that you’d alchemized a day ago. Right now you’re making a 2 panel comic involving some sicknasty dad jokes. Quite high-brow stuff, if you do say so yourself. You’re halfway through making a crabdad joke to show Karkat but you realize maybe his lusus might be a touchy subject so you drop it and shake the etch-a-sketch to clear the board again. You twiddle around with the knobs waiting for inspiration to come and end up doodling a bunch of pseudo-dicks.

There’s a sound of rustling as Karkat flips the page of his book the size of a dictionary on steroids. It looks older than the combined ages of every decaying corpse sitting in a coffin ever to exist in the entire universe and smells twice as worse. You put up with the muggy scent of mildew and piss for his sake. 

You squint over from your etch-a-sketch from time to time and just shake your head because the text is so small it’s amazing how Karkat can even manage to read it. You’d need a fucking microscope to even-

"Then go alchemize your own fucking microscope and give my ears some blessed silence for once in my shit life," says Karkat . Whoops. The thinking out loud thing keeps happening more and more frequently and it would honestly worry you except that you don’t care because no one really listens anyway so you can get away with saying whatever random bullshit parades through your mind like Macy’s. Balloon versions of the thanksgiving turkey, Pikachu, a smurf, Snoopy, the party’s happening 24/7 and it’s all right here courtesy of yours truly. And folks if you’ll look out your window to the right you’ll see Snoop Dogg, the man himself, in the flesh, floating above you trapped in the balloon body of a cartoon caricature of a beagle-

“You’re still mumbling,” says Karkat, flipping another ridiculously large page. He picks up a highlighter from his lap and uncaps it with his mouth before circling a paragraph and attempting to recap it one-handed before giving up and just tapping it gently on the side of the book to the beat. He’s got good rhythm. 

"Man if you don’t want to hear the deep intellectual musings of a child prodigy then just-" you pull the earbud out of your ear and reach over to jam it into Karkats free one. He lets out a squawk and bats your hand away, sending his book toppling to the ground with a heavy thunk. "Jegus shit cut it out you complete asshole, you just made me lose my place-" 

You lunge forward again but Karkat grabs your hand this time and pulls the earbud from your grip before you can even get close to his auricular sponge clots or whatever the fuck he calls them. He then pulls the other earbud out of his ear and he climbs over you and tries to stick both of them back in your ears and you just let him do it because physically fighting Karkat is a pasttime you gave up on long ago, and besides, there's bonus points for Karkat practically sitting in your lap. Karkat realizes the buds are in the wrong way around as he vainly attempts to fit the left earbud into your right, and he fumbles as he has to switch them and hes breathing in your face and its kind of funny but also the feeling of him touching your ears is kind of a turn on so you sit there and let him brush the sides of your face with his palms as he finally gets the earbuds in right and haha he's getting flustered. You smirk. "This is like the beginning of a really bad porno," you say. Karkat blushes a deep red.

"Shut up." He retreats off your lap. 

“Aw man no we have to finish this right we end the scene macking on each other.”

“Fuck’s sake.” He pushes himself to the far end of the couch, retrieving his book from the floor and staring pointedly at it as the blush begins to fade from his cheeks.

His feet are a mere inches away from you so you scoot over and sit on top of them. Karkat stares at his book harder and doesn’t move.

You wiggle around a bit and that’s apparently all it takes to get a reaction from him. He flings the book down.

"Will you quit it???"

You stop wiggling and just sit there. He squints at you before picking up the book again and goes back to highlighting.

Gradually, you begin to scoot your way closer to Karkat. He’s doing a great job of pretending not to notice as you actually wedge yourself between him and the couch. You set your head on his shoulder and watch him highlight another passage.

"So what’s the reading material?" you ask. Normally Karkat doesn’t read more than the novels which he calls ‘educational romance’ and what you assume in truth to be trashy troll erotica.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just curious. Smells like a rat’s ass and if you are gonna put up with that it’s obviously important.”

He looks over at you and then back to the book. “Fine. It’s an analysis of trollian societal structure and the evolution of the role of threshecutioners within that structure. Happy?”

"Yeah," you say. Karkat lets out a little huff.

"Didn’t you want to be a threshecushionwhatever."

"It’s thresh-eh-cutioner, you culturally insensitive nookwhiff. But yeah," he sighs. "That’s ideally what I would have gone on to do to make at least an iota of difference in the fucked up state Alternia was."

He fiddles around with the clip on the highlighter as he reads through another sentence of text.

"I mean, considering my blood type, it’s really unlikely I would have made it far enough to prevent getting culled. But you know, I thought, maybe if I had a high enough rank or a fucking excellent service record it’d prove me somehow? And once I managed to escape culling I’d inevitably have been forcibly sterilized because that’s the next rung up from straight up death but I figured I’d be able to live with that."

"That’s really fucked up," you say. He shrugs and your head follows the movement. “Yeah,” is all he says before going back to the text. You try to focus on it but it really is too small and the letters keep blurring together. Not that you’d be able to read it, anyway, because it’s Alternian.

“Can you translate for me?”

“Do I sense another attempt at convincing me to read out loud to you?” he says and you can hear the smile in his words. 

“Man you know I’m always up for story time with Karkat,” you say. “Here, move your head for a sec.” 

“Why?” 

“Because.” You wrestle an arm out from under you and slide it under Karkat so his neck is resting on your upper arm and your hand now has unlimited access to his hair. Hell yes.

Karkat rolls his eyes and begins reading but you can hear the small hitch in his breath as you start working your fingers through his hair and it’s so fucking worth it.

You’re completely lost on what the shit Karkat’s reading is actually about. He attempts to explain some of the terminology to you but even he has a bit of a hard time deciphering what exactly something means so translating takes twice as long. You close your eyes and occasionally hum affirmatives, mostly concentrating on the way you can feel his voice reverberating in his chest and the way his hair feels underneath your fingers and you don’t mean to fall asleep but you do and fuck it, you normally have such a hard time falling asleep anyway you’ll take what you can get. The dream bubble you enter for the time you’re sleeping is Rose’s room and its blessedly peaceful. You spend your time snooping around reading her wizard fanfiction.

You wake up about half an hour later. Karkat’s got the book propped up with one hand and the other is tracing small circles on the back of your free hand that somehow ended up on his chest while you were sleeping. Your legs are also a lot more tangled together than you remember them being initially. 

“Hey, beautiful,” you say groggily, and in your half-awake stupor you think it sounds hilarious because normally that’s what the other person would say when greeting someone just waking up but now you’re the one doing it, and also you’re calling Karkat beautiful which is in itself hilarious. Mostly because it’s true.

“Hey yourself,” he says, leaning over to kiss you on the forehead. Well. That was not entirely expected but you’re more than okay with that. You shift your head up and press your lips right under his ear. And then why not go an extra mile, you think, and continue kissing your way from his ear to the corner his mouth and he makes a little noise in the back of his throat and turns on his side to face you, slightly higher up than you are because you’re sliding down the back of the couch. “This good?” you ask. 

“Yeah,” Karkat’s voice is really hoarse. “You taking your shades off?”

“Oh,” you say, slipping them off the bridge of your nose and setting them on the arm of the couch. 

Karkat watches the movement and then moves forward, stopping when his nose touches your cheek, and he raises his eyebrows. You nod. He closes his eyes and kisses you on the lips and fucking hell you love him so much. You wrap both your arms around him and stick your hand back in his hair as he tilts his head and opens his mouth a little and you copy the movement. Karkat hesitantly runs his tongue over your bottom lip and you open your mouth a little more and haha wow this is _really_ nice. Karkat’s so warm and he tastes a little bit like the starbursts you’d both been eating earlier and you guess you must taste the same to him and the thought makes your stomach flip. 

Karkat presses closer to you and works a hand up the back of your shirt and traces along the edge of your binder and that kind of kills it for you because you start to feel a bit sick so you pull back. Karkat looks worried and immediately takes his hands out from under your shirt.

“Binder’s off limits, dude.” 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“S’no biggie, you didn’t know,” you reply. You stare at the fringe of his turtleneck, not wanting to make eye contact. Why is this so embarrassing? You’ve explained everything to him before, it’s not like you’re facing another awkward conversation about shitty human gender. Maybe you’re just embarrassed because this is the first time you’ve ever made out with him and you’d kind of been wondering what that’d be like and also have the hots for him so. Yeah that was probably it.

“Dave, you know this isn’t moirailship, right,” says Karkat. You’d been great at playing stupid with troll quadrants but you guess something like this is definitely not excusable as touchy feely mwah-rails.

“Uh, yeah.”

That’s the moment when Rose for whatever godforsaken reason decides to walk into the common room. Both you and Karkat spring apart. You swipe your shades back on. Karkat’s blushing up a storm and buries his face in his book as Rose walks over. 

“Sup, Lalonde,” you say. 

“Sup, Strider,” she replies, smirking because the fact that both you and Karkat were getting a lil frisky is kind of obvious. 

“Just chillin,” you say. 

“I see,” she says. “Looks like great fun.” She doesn’t press it, though, and walks over to the table to get her knitting supplies. And sits down. And starts to knit. She glances over at you and Karkat once in a while and smiles. Fucking Rose, of course she’d just—

“We need to talk,” Karkat blurts out from behind his book.

“Fuck, yeah, we do,” you say. “Important business to attend. The Strider-Vantas corporation’s going under and there’s a really fucking important bailout meeting happening in 5 so we gotta run-“

“You’re killing it, Dave,” says Karkat as he stands up, smacking his book on the couch behind him. You both make for the transportalizer. 

“See ya round, Rose,” you say. 

“Ciao,” she calls back.

The transportalizer whisks you both to the hallway just outside Karkat’s block. 

“Fucking Rose,” you say aloud this time, voice echoing off the metal walls. 

“I cannot believe your sister sometimes,” says Karkat, who nudges you forward and you both start walking towards Karkat’s block.

“Can’t get any fucking privacy when she’s around,” you say, shoving your hands into your pockets. “I ask for help with sheet music or making pasta or someshit and end up getting a free psych session instead. I like to think she doesn’t get off on it, but god knows she’s already got a weird tentacle fetish and wizard kinks or whatnot so maybe psychoanalysis is just one of those.”

“Add making everyone in the immediate vicinity uncomfortable at will to that list,” says Karkat. “Is that some kind of natural born talent she has or is that a skill she’s chipped away to perfection…”

Karkat trails off and starts keying in the code for his block and the door opens with a pneumatic hiss.

“Nah, she’s always been like this.”

“Of fucking course.” Karkat shakes his head, stepping inside. You follow suit. 

“I feel kinda bad, though, shittalking her,” you say, shrugging as you watch Karkat take off his shoes and you do the same. “As weird as she is and as annoying as her shrink roleplays are, she’s not that bad. I’ll admit her advice helps more often than not, actually.” 

“Kanaya said human siblings were similar to moirails?” says Karkat. He flicks on the light and you stand there watching as he makes a pile of blankets and pillows in the corner of the room. 

“Yeah, a bit, I guess,” you say, at a loss for how to explain in it in troll terms. “Y’all don’t really have the family thing going on so I’m not sure how exactly to translate.” 

“Hmm.” Karkat nods, sitting down on the pile and snuggling back into it. He pats the spot next to him, and you plop down, pulling a blanket over yourself. You both sit in silence for a while. You’re about to open your mouth to make another quip about Rose when Karkat cuts you off.

“Look, we seriously do need to talk.”

“Dude, we’re talking right now,” you say nervously. 

“That’s not what I meant,” says Karkat, sighing. 

You feel too hot. Not like the good, sexy kinda hot that makes all the boys n girls n people of whatever gender swoon. The kind where your skin feels hot and prickly and you're all too conscious of it. You shake yourself mentally because you should be fine, you’re chill, this is Karkat, he’s your bro, and you’re not going to die talking about whatever he wants to talk about-

“Like, are we human dating now, or what?” he asks. 

“Uh,” you respond very eloquently.

“I get that both of us are sort of confused as hell in this department what with the fact we’re both teenagers being ravaged by hormones and what the hell ever, but,” he shuffles on the pile and turns to face you. You stare very determinedly at the ceiling from behind your shades. _Why is this so fucking hard for you._ “If we’re gonna keep doing this, which I am all for, don’t get me wrong, we need to set up some boundaries and clear shit up so things like back there when I was…” He clears his throat. “So I don’t make you uncomfortable or vice versa.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” you say. It doesn’t sound good at all. It sounds necessary and painfully awkward, that’s what it sounds like.

“So I guess first order of business: I know the binder’s an absolute no. Anything else that’s strictly…not….” Karkat fumbles.

You feel so fucking awk holy hell, your face is on fire. “Just in general, um. Don’t take off any clothes and no touching under clothes or any shit like that. I mean if I tell you it’s okay then…yeah. But otherwise, that shits got caution tape all over it. Police line, do not cross.”

“Okay.” Karkat folds his hands in his lap. 

“Show me yours?” you ask. Might as well do your part in contributing to the discomfort that’s basically wafting off the both of you.

“What?” Karkat blanches.

“Your personal space deal,” you say, deciding maybe to cut it with the questionable innuendos.

“Oh,” he says. Now it’s his turn to blush visibly. “Stay out of my boxers, and we’re golden.”

“No touching in your no-no square, gotcha,” you say. 

Karkat narrows his eyes at you. “Shit just gimme a sec I gotta show you it’s so relevant,” you say.

You pull out your phone and open the no-no square song up in a browser, how the fuck you get internet here you don’t even want to know, and tap play. Karkat stares as you snort at the lyrics. “Its great content,” you say, cutting the song short and putting the phone to sleep. You flip it a couple times before it bounces off your hand and falls to the floor a few feet away. Nice. You scoot down and try to toe it back because you don’t want to get up but its not working so you just collapse back on the pile, turn around so your face is squished against one of the pillows.

You groan into the pillow as Karkat pats your head. “I am a young millennial, I cannot survive without the constant support of my phone. Help me, I’m dying.” 

“I can’t understand a fucking word you’re saying,” says Karkat. He elbows you lightly. “Get up, we’ve still got another order of business to cover.”

“Fuck orders of business, this business meeting sucks and Strider-Vantas Incorporated has already gone belly up. I’m retiring early. Find me in Florida playing golf or someshit if you wanna talk,” you say.

“I still have no fucking idea what you’re mumbling about, here just--,” Karkat pulls the pillow from under your head and you grab at it weakly before Karkat moves it to his other side. “Are we good?”

You readjust your shades and sit up; you make yourself face him. “We’re fuckin ace.”

“Perfect. Okay. We need to clear up this shit with quadrants because I’m stressing over here and I’m not sure where we stand. I was thinking we could still keep on being bros or whatever weird ass kind of moirailship we were trying to have but…tack on the romancey bits as well.”

“What, like moirails with benefits?” You whistle slowly. “Now shoot me if I’m wrong but ain’t that kinky as fuck in your culture—”

“No, asshole, that’s not what I meant,” Karkat interrupts. “You know what, fuck it. No quadrants, okay? Since you’re too obsessed with kinky shit to think straight I’m gonna pick up the ball and do the thinking for both of us. You-” he pokes you to exaggerate “-are going to consistently fuck up the whole quadrants thing so I’m gonna drop it. Here’s my suggestion: we try some version of your human romance. I’ve studied it enough to understand its fucked systemics, and when faced with the option of either grinding my teeth at your bullshit failure of an emotional and sexual development as a species, or shooting myself in the foot repeatedly as you inevitably wreck whatever dignity the quadrant system has left, I’d choose accelerated tooth decay from excessive jaw clenching any day.” 

“You expect me to give a serious answer to that after you manage to insult my human culture at least three times in one breath,” you say. You think it’s a decent idea though, for what it’s worth.

“For the record, it was twice,” says Karkat.


End file.
